973.7L63 

D2D39e 


Derning,    Henry  Champion » 
Eulogy  of  Abraham   Lincoln. 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


EULOGY 


OF 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN, 


BY 


HENRY  CHAMPION  DEMING, 


BEFORE    THE 


GENEKAL  ASSEMBLY  OF  CONNECTICUT, 


AT 


ALLYx\  HALL,  HARTFORD,  THURSDAY,  JUNE  8lli,  1865. 


-•-♦ 


HARTFORD: 

A.  N.  CLARK  &  CO.,  STATE  PRINTERS. 

1865. 


C.K 


COMMITTEE  ON  DEATH  OF  PRESIDENT  LINCOLN. 


Hon.  Mr.  Harrison. 
Messrs.  Pratt  of  Norwich, 
Oaklet  of  Bristol, 
Merritt  of  Greenwich, 
Payne  of  North  Haven, 
Amsbury  of  KilHngly, 
Hart  of  Cornwall, 
HuNGERFORD  of  East  Haddam, 
Paine  of  "Woodstock. 


General  Assembly, 

May  Session,  A.  D.  1865. 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  this  General  Assembly  are  hereby 
tendered  to  the  Hon.  Henry  C.  Deming,  for  his  able,  eloquent 
and  patriotic  Address  on  the  life  and  character  of  ABRAHAM 
LINCOLN. 

Resolved,  That  thirty-five  hundred  copies  of  said  address  be 
printed  for  the  use  of  this  Assembly. 


Passed. 


In  Senate,  June  9th,  1865. 
WM.  T.  ELMER,  Clerh 


Passed. 


House  of  Representatives,  June  9th,  1865. 


JOHN  R.  BUCK,  Clerh 


EULOGY. 


CR 


By  authority  of  a  joint  resolution,  the  Select  Com- 
mittee on  the  Death  of  President  Lincoln,  invited 
the  Hon.  Henry  Champion  Deming,  of  Hartford, 
Member  of  Congress  from  the  First  District,  to  de- 
liver before  the  General  Assembly  a  eulogy  upon  the 
life,  character  and  services  of  the  lamented  Presi- 
dent. 

The  invitation  was  accepted  by  the  honorable 
gentleman,  and  the  eulogy  was  delivered  at  Allyn 
Hall,  in  the  city  of  Hartford,  on  the  evening-  of 
June  8th,  1865. 

The  Hall  was  festooned  with  flags  and  mourning, 
and  music  was  furnished  by  Colt's  Band. 

The  meeting  was  called  to  order  by  Hon.  H. 
Lynde  Harrison,  Senator  from  the  Sixth  District, 
who  announced  the  followins;  officers : 

■    PRESIDENT. 
His  Excellency,  WM.  A.  BUCKINGHAM. 

VICE-PRESIDENTS. 

{On  the  part  of  the  Senate.) 

Hon.  Roger  Aveeill,  President,         Hon.  Samuel  Rockwell, 
"    Edward  I.  Sandford,  "     Sylvester  Smith, 

"     Charles  H.  Mallory,  "    John  T.  Waite, 


6 

Hon.  Benjamin  Pomerot, 

Hon.  Charles  W.  Ballard,                 1 

« 

Edwin  H.  Bugbee, 

<( 

Orlando  J.  Hodge, 

<< 

Hrnrt  W.  Peck, 

(( 

Bobbins  Battell, 

« 

William  E.  Cone, 

(( 

Jasper  H.  Bolton, 

Hon.  Charles  A 

Atkins. 

(On  thi 

!  part  of  the  House.)                                                1 

Hon.  E.  K.  Foster,  Speaker, 

Mr. 

Henry  B.  Harrison, 

Mr 

H.  K.  W.  Welch, 

a 

John  S.  Rice, 

ti 

Franklin  Chamberlin, 

tt 

Harris  B.  Munson, 

(C 

Oliver  S.  Williams, 

<t 

Frederick  J.  Kingsbury, 

t( 

Rial  Chaney, 

ii 

Samuel  Mowry, 

ti 

Charles  W.  Scott, 

ti 

David  P.  Nichols, 

{{ 

PuiNEAS  T.  Barnum, 

i< 

Myron  L.  Mason, 

(( 

Samcel  G.  Beardslet, 

C( 

Edward  L.  Cundall, 

{< 

Henry  Hammond, 

<i 

David  Gallup, 

it 

Charles  Osgood, 

Ct 

David  E.  Bostwick, 

t( 

Abijah  Catlin, 

i( 

Andrew  B.  Mygatt, 

<i 

Henry  S.  Barbour, 

11 

William  G.  Coe, 

a 

Luther  Boardman, 

ti 

William  R.  Clark, 

« 

George  Kellogg, 

ti 

Julius  Converse.  /- 

SECRETARIES,                                                     | 

(On  the 

part  of  the  Senate.) 

Hon 

.  Frederick  W.  Russell, 

Hon.  Francis  A.  Sanfokd. 

(On  the 

paH  of  the  House.) 

Mr. 

Samuel  J.  Day, 

Mr. 

Edward  S.  Scranton, 

•  (1 

Alonzo  F.  Wood, 

it 

Albert  L.  Avery, 

(( 

F.  St.  John  Lockwood, 

ti 

Apollos  Comstock, 

•  ft 

Oscar  Todrtelotte, 

a 

LuciAN  Carpenter, 

11 

George  M.  Woodruff, 

it 

Lewis  Catlin, 

i< 

John  M.  Douglas, 

it 

George  D.  Hastings. 

7 

On  taking  the  chair,  Governor  Buckingham  was 
loudly  applauded.     He  said  : 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : — 

It  is  difficult  for  us  to  review  the  past  and  con- 
template the  rapid  and  marvelous  changes  which 
have  crowded  the  events  of  generations  into  a  few 
passing  months,  without  inquiring  whether  it  all  has 
not  been  a  dream ;  and  yet  our  minds  and  hands 
have  been  so  much  occupied,  and  our  hearts  so 
deeply  affected  by  the  scenes  through  which  we 
have  passed,  that  our- judgment  and  consciousness 
decide  the  question,  and  assure  us  that  we  have  not 
been  moved  by  visions  and  dreams,  but  by  realities. 

The  rebellion  has  been  a  reality.  The  power  of 
the  government  has  not  been  imaginary.  The 
organization  of  armies,  their  conflict  upon  a  thou- 
sand battle-fields,  the  overthrow  of  our  national  ene- 
mies, the  suppression  of  the  rebellion,  and  the 
emancipation  of  the  enslaved,  are  all  real  events, 
which  have  surprised  ourselves  and  astonished  the 
civilized  world.  But  events  alone  do  not  make 
history.  It  is  read  in  the  character  and  lives  of 
those  who  have  been  active  participators  in  the 
scenes  which  have  transpired.  There  can  be  no 
correct  history  of  the  Israelites,  of  their  oppression 
and  deliverence,  of  their  passage  through  the  sea 
and  through  the    wilderness,  without  the   lives  of 


8 

Mose»  and  Joshua.  There  can  be  no  true  history  of 
the  twenty-five  years  of  European  war,  commencing 
with  the  French  revolution  and  ending;  with  the 
battle  of  Waterloo,  without  the  life  of  Napoleon. 
Nor  can  there  be  a  correct  history  of  this  nation,  as 
it  has  passed  through  this  great  struggle  for  exist- 
ence, without  the  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  with- 
out connecting  his  name  Avith  that  immortal  procla- 
mation which  gave  freedom  and  manhood  to  four 
millions  of  bondmen. 

The  General  Assembly  has  properly  invited  a  gen- 
tleman of  distinguished  ability,  who  was  intimately 
acquainted  with  Mr.  Lincoln,  to  present  to  us  this 
evening,  and  to  weave  into  our  nation's  history,  the 
life  and  character  of  our  late  President,  so  (hat  all 
may  see  those  qualities  of  heart  and  mind  by  which 
he  endeared  himself  to  the  people,  and  which  stamped 
his  official  acts  with  a  purity  and  patriotism  which 
command  universal  respect  and  admiration.  No 
one  can  draw  his  character  in  lines  of  more  distinct- 
ness and  accuracy,  or  present  it  in  more  attractive 
and  life-like  colors,  or  show  more  clearly  the  precise 
influence  which  he  exerted  over  public  affairs  during 
this  period  of  danger,  than  the  orator  of  the 
evening,  whom  I  now  introduce — the  Hon.  Henry 
C.  Deming. 


9 

Mr.  Deming  was   received   with   long  continued 
applause.     He  said : 

May  it  please  youk  Excellency,  and  Gentlemen  of  the 
General  Assembly  : — 

From  the  seat  of  our  Republican  Empire  which, 
during  the  last  four  years  and  for  all  coming  time, 
he  has  preserved  from  the  spoiler  by  his  wisdom  and 
address ;  through  avenues  of  weeping  myriads  who 
have  thronged  the  thoroughfare,  all  the  way  from 
the  Potomac  to  the  prairie,  to  look  on  his  bier, 
bear  his  pall,  and  to  scatter  on  his  casket  the  fra- 
grant offerings  of  affection  ;  through  great  common- 
wealths wiiich,  with  all  the  pomp  and  circumstance 
of  mournful  state,  have  received  him  on  their  thresh- 
old and  attended  him,  with  uncovered  heads,  and 
with  every  oblation  of  sorrow  from  border  to  bor- 
der ;  through  magnificent  cities  draped  from  cornice 
to  basement  in  all  the  emblems  and  wailing  with 
every  motto  and  articulation  of  woe ;  to  the  sighing 
of  the  air,  over  the  groaning  earth ;  to  the  booming 
of  minute  gun,  to  maiffled  drum  and  the  plaintive 
burst  of  martial  music ;  to  dirge,  anthem  and  lamen- 
tation, Abraham  Lincoln  has  reached  that  silent  home 
of  all  the  living,  which  "  buries  every  error,  covers 
every  defect,  extinguishes  every  resentment." 


10 

After  life's  fitful  fever  he  sleeps  well. 
Treason  has  done  his  worst,  nor  steel  nor  poison, 
Malice  domestic,  foreign  levy,  nothing 
Can  touch  him  further  ! 

With  ampler  honors,  and  with  more  of  the  sym- 
bols and  ceremonial  of  universal  love  and  veneration, 
than  this  continent  ever  paid  before  to  any  of  her 
sons,  the  funeral  pageant  had  scarcely  reached  the 
jDortals  of  the  tomb,  before  the  posthumous  tributes 
of  another  Hemisphere  are  borne  across  the  Ocean. 
The  suffering  of  her  eldest  born  fairly  melts  into 
sympathy  the  estranged  heart  of  our  haughty  Island 
Mother,  and  England  mourns,  as  when  Nelson  ex- 
pired in  I  he  arms  of  victoiy,  or  as  when  the  gates 
of  her  Great  Abbey,  closed  upon  the  ashes  of  the 
greatest  of  her  warriors.  The  generous  Queen 
draws  upon  her  own  inconsolable  domestic  grief,  for 
consolation  to  a  wife  and  mother,  like  herself  be- 
reaved, and  pens  with  her  own  royal  hand  a  letter  of 
condolence.  The  brazen  lips  of  the  impassive  Empe- 
ror break  their  grim  silence  to  utter  sententious  pan- 
egyric. From  the  mountains  of  Switzerland,  which 
have  for  centuries  broken  the  waves  of  oppression,  we 
have  free,  generous,  intelligent  homage  to  a  libera- 
tor, whom  William  Tell  would  have  been  proud  to 
recognize  as  a  brother.  Ancient  cities,  which  might 
have  wept,  when  at  the  base  of  Pompey's  statue 


11 

great  Caesar  fell,  have,  by  their  representatives,  hung 
in  all  the  trappings  of  grief  the  august  Hall,  wherein 
they  are  now  legislating  for  regenerated  Italy.  The 
free  towns  and  corporate  guilds  of  Netherlands  and 
Germany,  which  wrung  their  charters  from  Charles 
the  Bold,  and  rocked  European  freedom  in  its  cradle, 
vie  with  each  other  in  canonizing  a  child  of  the 
people,  who  leads  the  Great  Eepublic  from  darkness 
and  bondage,  to  light  and  liberty.  The  Prussian 
Chamber  of  Deputies,  receive  with  enthusiastic 
applause,  the  eloquent  eulogium  of  a  personi^l  ac- 
quaintance of  the  President,  and  affirm  a  most  ear- 
nest resolution  of  respect  by  unanimously  rising 
from  their  seats,  in  token  of  superlative  courtesy, 
and  the  Lower  House  of  the  Austrian  Reichsrath 
which  conducts  its  stately  proceedings,  according  to 
forms  and  usages  handed  down  from  the  Feudal 
Ages,  is  as  wild  and  demonstrative,  upon  the  receipt 
of  the  sad  intelligence,  as  an  Indignation  Meeting  of 
Loyal  Leagues  in  Union  Square.  Indeed,  for  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  one  cry  of  universal  regret  is  raised  all 
over  the  civilized  earth. 

It  is  difficult  to  descend  from  the  fervor  of  these 
first  impassioned  outbursts  of  a  world  wide  grief,  to 
cool  analysis  and  historic  delineation.  And  yet  that 
is  the  task  before  me.  I  should  violate  the  proprie- 
ties of  this  occasion,  if  I  indulged  in  mere  rhapsodies, 


12 

however  grand  and  well  deserved,  for  I  am  to  pre- 
sent an  estimate  of  character  to  a  Legislative  body, 
and  I  can  not  forget  that  it  habitually  dwells  in  the 
mild  atmosphere  congenial  to  deliberation,  that  it 
solicits  mivarnished  statement  instead  of  rhetorical 
flourish,  and  records  its  own  judgment  in  the  com- 
posed style  of  fact  and  argument. 

In  these  days  of  photographs,  it  is  almost  super- 
fluous to  paint  in  speech  the  portrait  of  a  distin- 
guished man,  but  as  the  resources  of  the  language 
have  been  exhausted  in  depreciation  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
person,  I  am  unwilling  that  he  shall  pass  into  his- 
tory, in  any  shape,  which  may  repel  the  enthusiasm 
due  by  posterity,  to  exalted  merit  and  heroic  achieve- 
ment. Let  us  at  all  events  place  on  record  the  im- 
age which  he  really  wore  that  he  may  not  descend 
the  ages  according  to  malicious  caricature.  Mr. 
Lincoln's  person  was  not  one  to  move  their  apj^lause, 
to  whom  an  Apollo  or  an  Antinous  are  the  only 
ideals  of  physical  humanity,  or  whose  undeviating 
types  of  manliness  are  found  on  the  canvas  of  a 
Revnolds  or  a  Stuart,  but  it  was  not  uninterestins; 
for  those  to  contemplate  who  regard  the  human  form 
and  face,  as  a  veritable  record  of  life's  experiences, 
and  to  some  extent,  an  index  of  character.  It  was 
not  unsuited  to  one  who  was  born  from  a  rude  stock, 
in  a  wild  forest,  and  was  nurtured  and  moulded  by 


13 

constant  warfare,  with  wilderness  life,  and  iron  for- 
tune, and  frontier  hardships.  Conceive  a  tall  and 
gaunt  figure,  more  than  six  feet  in  height,  not  only 
unencumbered  with  superfluous  flesh,  but  reduced 
to  the  minimum  working  standard  of  cord,  and  sinew, 
and  muscle,  strong  and  indurated  by  exposure  and 
toil,  with  legs  and  arms  long  and  attenuated,  but 
not  disproportionately  so  to  the  long  and  attenuated 
trunk ;  in  posture  and  carriage  not  ungraceful,  but 
with  the  grace  of  unstudied  and  careless  ease,  rather 
than  of  cultivated  airs  and  high-bred  pretensions. 
His  dress  is  uniformly  of  black  throughout,  and 
would,  attract  but  little  attention  in  a  well  dressed 
circle,  if  it  hung  less  loosely  upon  him  and  the 
ample  white  shirt  collar  was  not  turned  over  his 
cravat  in  the  western  style.  The  face  that  sur- 
mounts this  figure  is  half  Roman  and  half  Indian, 
bronzed  by  climate,  furrowed  by  life  struggles, 
seamed  with  humor,  the  head  is  massive  and  covered 
with  dark,  thick  and  unmanageable  hair,  the  brow 
is  wide  and  well  developed,  the  nose  large  and 
fleshy,  the  Hps  full,  cheeks  thin,  and  drawn  down  in 
strong  corded  lines,  which,  but  for  the  wiry  whiskers, 
would  disclose  the  machinery  which  moves  the  broad 
jaw.  The  eyes  are  dark  gray,  sunk  in  deep  sockets, 
but  bright,  soft  and  beautiful  in  expression,  and 
sometimes  lost  and  half  abstracted,  as  if  their  glance 


14 

was  reversed  and  turned  inward,  or  as  if  the  soul 
which  hghted  them  was  far  away.  Tlie  teeth  are 
white  and  regular,  and  it  is  only  when  a  smile,  radi- 
ant, captivating  and  winning  as  was  ever  given  to 
mortal,  transfigures  the  plain  countenance,  that  you 
begin  to  realize  that  it  is  not  impossible  for  artists  to 
admire  and  woman  to  love  it. 

As  the  world  has  runs;  with  ridicule  of  the  unsrain- 
liness  of  his  manners,  I  may  be  permitted  to  say,  that 
without  any  pretensions  to  superfine  polish,  they 
were  frank,  cordial,  and  dignified,  without  rudeness, 
without  offence,  and  without  any  violation  of  the 
proprieties  and  etiquettes  of  his  high  position.  As 
fastidious  and  keen  a  master  of  such  nice  matters  as 
Mr.  Everett  has  said,  "I  recognize  in  the  President,  a 
full  measure  of  the  qualities  which  entitle  him  to  the 
personal  respect  of  the  people.  On  the  only  social 
occasion  on  which  I  ever  had  the  honor  to  be  in  his 
company,  viz:  the  Commemoration  at  Gettysburg, 
he  sat  at  the  table  at  the  house  of  my  friend  David 
Willis,  Esq.,  by  tlie  side  of  several  distinguished  per- 
sons, ladies  and  gentlemen,  foreigners  and  Americans, 
among  them  the  French  Minister  at  Washington, 
since  appointed  French  Ambassador  at  Madrid,  and 
the  Admiral  of  the  French  Fleet,  and  that  in  gentle- 
manly appearance,  manners  and  conversation  he  was 
the  peer  of  any  man  at  the  table." 


15 

To  borrow  one  of  his  own  conversational  phrases 
he  did'nt  brag  on  deportment.  He  was  not  a  Tur- 
veydrop  or  Sir  Harcourt  Conrtly  or  General  Banks. 
It  would  have  puzzled  him  to  stand  in  tableau  for  the 
Earl  of  Chatham,  or  the  Pompeian  Ajax.  He  was 
not  proud  of  his  leg,  like  President  Dwight,  nor  was 
he  a  George  the  Fourth  at  a  bow.  He  stood,  and 
moved,  and  bowed,  without  affectation,  and  without 
obtrusive  awkwardness,  pretty  much  as  nature 
prompted,  and  as  if  he  regarded  carnage  as  about  as 
bad  a  criterion  as  color  of  genuine  nobility  of  soul. 
He  was  not  overcareful  of  his  dignity,  feeling  assured 
that  his  dignity  could  take  care  of  itself,  and  consent- 
ing to  rend  the  web  of  official  formalities,  and  to 
waive  all  ceremony  and  precedence  which  might  bar 
his  passage  to  a  good  deed  by  the  most  expeditious 
route.  He  has  been  convicted  in  contempt  of  "  the 
divinity  which  doth  hedge  a  king,"  of  conferring  with 
his  counsellors  in  a  great  emergency,  and  of  perform- 
ing an  act  of  kindness  and  mercy,  enveloped  in  no 
robe  of  state  but  a  cotton  nightgown  of  scanty  pat- 
tern, and  on  one  memorable  occasion  he  even  pre- 
sumed to  solve  an  enigma,  raised  in  a  congress  of 
ambassadors,  by  the  little  story  of  "  root  hog  or  die." 
He  was  what  Dr.  Johnson  calls  a  thoroughly  "club- 
bable" man,  eminently  social  and  familiar ;  in  private 
interviews  and  sometimes  in  public,  overflowing  with 


16 

illustrations  of  every  theme,  always  apt  and  racy, 
and  frequently  humorous,  with  a  habit  like  the  Doc- 
tor himself,  of  upsetting  a  pedantry  or  a  sophism  by 
an  epigram  or  an  anecdote,  and  with  a  story  telling 
method  of  reasonino-  like  our  own  Doctor  Franklin. 
While  unrivaled  as  a  racoiieur  in  the  pith  and  variety 
of  his  store,  he  was  not  half  so  broad  in  his  narratives 
as  many  an  assuming  Chesterfield  on  both  sides  of 
the  water.  It  is  the  weak  invention  of  false  friends 
and  open  enemies,  to  lay  at  his  door  all  the  prurient 
jokes  which  their  foul  imaginations  conceived  and  to 
falsely  asseverate  that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  indulg- 
ing in  unseemly  jest  and  repartee  on  grave  and  sol- 
emn occasions.  I  can  adopt  and  endorse  the  precise 
language  of  Mr.  F.  B.  Carpenter,  who  as  an  artist  had 
free  access  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  presence,  and  was  for 
several  months  an  inmate  of  the  White  House,  when 
he  says,  "  I  feel  that  it  is  due  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  mem- 
ory to  state,  that  during  my  residence  in  Washing- 
ton, after  witnessing  his  intercourse  Avith  all  classes 
of  people,  including  Governors,  Senators,  Members 
of  Congress,  Officers  of  the  Army  and  familiar  friends, 
I  can  not  recollect  to  have  heard  him  relate  a  cir- 
cumstance to  any  one  of  them  all  that  would  have 
been  out  of  place  if  uttered  in  a  lady's  drawing  room, 
I  am  aware  that  a  different  impression  may  prevail, 
founded  it  may  be  in  some  instances  on  facts,  but 


17 

where  there  is  one  fact  of  the  kind,  I  am  persuaded 
that  there  are  forty  falsehoods  at  least." 

Of  his  intellectual  capacity,  Mr.  Lincoln  gave  the 
most  signal  proof,  in  that  memorable  contest  with 
Judge  Douglas,  and  his  speeches  are  in  no  sense  infe- 
rior to  his  rivals — the  Charles  James  Fox  of  our  forum, 
by  universal  consent  the  most  athletic  and  expert  off- 
hand debater  who  ever  graced  the  United  States 
Senate.  The  President's  mind  was  so  original  and 
self  dependent,  so  unwilling  to  borrow  knowledge 
and  opinion,  that  he  fairly  scorned  all  adventitious 
support  and  external  auxiliaries.  No  President  ever 
leaned  so  lightly  upon  his  Cabinet.  No  man  repro- 
duces less  in  official  documents,  the  argument  and 
thought  which  he  imbibes  at  consultations,  and  it  is 
a  marvelous  fact  that  no  sentence  is  to  be  found  in 
any  of  his  state  papers,  which  suggests  the  suspicion 
of  any  other  impress  but  that  of  his  own  mint,  or 
where  he  attempts  to  strengthen  or  vindicate  a  posi- 
tion, by  quoting  from  any  book  or  citing  any  author- 
ity. And  his  greatness,  his  greatness!  is  the  most 
original  and  bizarre  in  the  world's  history,  shaped 
after  no  model,  suggesting  as  a  compact  whole  no 
pattern,  no  parallel — not  even  a  resemblance,  con- 
travening every  antique  and  modern  standard  of 
Hero-worship, — a  greatness  which  admits  of  no  exact 
analysis  and  can  only  be  loosely  described  as  com- 
2 


18 

posed  of  great  simplicity,  great  naturalness,  great 
bonhomie,  great  shrewdness,  great  strength,  great 
devotion,  great  equanimity,  and  great  success,  on  the 
greatest  theatre  ever  offered  to  such  qualities  for 
exhibition.  He  af)pears  like  an  erratic  streaming 
comet  amid  the  fixed  orbs  of  greatness,  a  fiery 
meteor  plunging  and  howling  through  their  subdued 
and  chastened  atmosphere.  Ennobled  by  no  patent 
but  that  of  nature,  with  no  diploma  but  his  record ; 
crowned,  as  it  were,  with  the  wild  flowers  of  the 
forest  and  with  all  its  flavor  and  freshness  upon  him, 
he  walks  into  the  surprised  Pantheon  of  the  world's 
great  men,  a  huge,  grotesque  Backwoodsman,  but 
with  credentials  to  admission  which  can  not  be  chal- 
lenged or  disallowed ;  like  the  hirsute  and  half  naked 
Brennus  striding  into  the  grave  and  reverend  deco- 
rums of  a  Roman  Senate ;  like  Hans  Luther's  plebeian 
and  beetle-browed  son  confronting  the  stoled,  mitered 
and  ermined  Diet  of  Charles  the  Fifth ;  like  a  red- 
nosed,  cropped  and  mail-clad  Cromwell  shuffling 
through  the  silken  splendors,  the  Vandyke  dresses, 
the  perfumed  love-locks,  and  the  fastidious  etiquette 
of  outraged  Whitehall ;  like  St.  Artegans'  iron  soldier 
marching,  with  his  invincible  flail,  into  the  startled 
and  shrinking  ranks  of  vulnerable  and  pain  suffering 
warriors.  It  may  be  said  of  him,  as  has  been  said  of 
another  indigenous  American  type  of  manliness,  that 


19 

lie  taught  the  world  "  a  new  idea  of  greatness."  It 
is  somewhat  surprising  that  with  all  his  superabun- 
dance of  wit  and  humor,  he  was  but  frugally  endowed 
with  imagination  and  fancy,  without  wing  lor  the  air, 
with  not  even  enough  like  the  ostrich  to  aid  hirn 
along  the  earth.  He  never  uses  a  figure  of  speech  to 
decorate  or  enliven  his  style,  and  but  seldom  for  the 
purpose  of  illustrating  a  thought  or  exposing  a  fallacy- 
He  contemned  all  the  elegancies  of  diction,  using 
oinly  plain  homespun  English,  aiming  at  direct  and 
compact  statement  in  the  fewest  words,  and  those 
sometimes  chosen  with  more  respect  to  convenience 
than  precision. 

His  education  was  self- acquired  and  unpretending 
and,  in  the  department  of  History,  wherein  the  Past 
by  experience  and  example  instructs  and  exhorts 
the  Present,  and  therefore  so  essential  to  genuine 
statesmanship,  it  was  somewhat  narrow  and  defect- 
ive. It  must  be  constantly  borne  in  mind,  that  a 
superlative  kindness  and  a  disposition  to  oblige  every 
body,  were  fairly  autocratic  in  him,  sometimes  hold- 
ing in  complete  subjection  all  the  other  powers  and 
forces  of  his  nature,  and  frequently  con  trolling,  against 
their  protest,  his  opinions  and  actions.  "I  have  never 
willingly  planted  a  thorn  in  any  man's  bosom,"  is  the 
accurate  description  which  he  gives  of  himself  The 
domination  of  this  amiable  disposition  must  be  con- 


20 

stantly  remembered,  and  carried  along  with  you  into 
the  development  and  estimate  of  his  public  career, 
which  I  am  attempting  to  present. 

The  chief  mental  equipments  which  he  brought  to 
the  mighty  task  before  him,  were  that  downright 
uncompromising  common  sense  which  seems  to  divine 
its  way  through  the  most  intricate  problems,  a  keen 
insight  into  human  nature,  an  intimate  acquaintance 
with  the  spasmodic  movements  of  the  American 
mind,  a  natural  aptitude,  improved  by  professional 
discipline,  in  chaining  premise  to  conclusion,  and  in 
detecting  the  occult  relations  of  political  cause  to 
political  effect,  great  caution  in  forming  opinions, 
honesty  and  sincerity  of  purpose,  inflexible  persist- 
ence in  what  he  regarded  as  public  duty,  and  a  con- 
scientious sense  of  his  responsibility  to  the  country 
and  to  mankind.  He  had  a  temper  habitually  cheer- 
ful, but  not,  as  some  have  falsely  assumed,  inflexibly 
so,  for  in  my  brief  acquaintance  with  it,  I  have  seen 
it  wear  every  shade  from  exultation  to  despair. 
Laughter  in  abundance  was  in  him  but  tears  were 
also  there.  To  these  characteristics  should  always 
be  added,  an  intuitive  comprehension  of  the  precise 
line  which  divides  Right  from  Wrong,  and  imj)licit 
reliance  upon  the  goodness  and  wisdom  of  Almighty 
God. 

Let  us  now  see   how  this   peculiar  organization 


21 

addressed  itself  to  the  tremendous  task  which  he  has 
just  triumphantly  achieved.  And  what  a  creative 
task  it  was  ?  Armies,  navies,  cash,  credit,  opinion,  all 
to  be  created,  heroism  to  be  evolved  from  money- 
making  thrift,  pluck  from  pusilanimity,  steadfast 
principle  from  vacillating  expediency,  constancy  and 
endurance  from  over-sanguine  and  vain-glorious 
dreams — and  millions  of  self-willed  and  arrogant 
despots  to  be  humbled  forever.  He  began  by  almost 
re-creating  himself. 

In  one  of  the  brief  speeches  which  Abraham  Lin- 
coln made,  when  as  President  elect,  and  in  the  full 
flush  of  life,  he  traveled  the  same  road  upon  which 
he  has  recently  returned,  in  the  habiliments  of  the 
grave,  he  says  to  his  countrymen:  "In  my  view  of 
the  present  aspect  of  affairs,  there  need  be  no  blood- 
shed or  war.  There  is  no  necessity  for  it.  I  am  not 
in  favor  of  such  a  course,  and  I  may  say  in  advance 
that  there  will  be  no  bloodshed  unless  it  be  forced 
upon  the  government,  and  then  it  will  be  compelled 
to  act  in  self-defence."  This  brief  sentence  furnishes 
us  with  the  first  insight  into  his  mind,  when  contem- 
plating the  task  before  him,  and  it  unlocks  all  the 
mystery  and  explains  the  purely  defensive  course  of 
his  administration,  during  the  first  two  months  of  its 
existence. 

At  the  same  time  Jefferson  Davis,  on  his  progress 


22 

to  Montgomery,  to  install  a  hostile  government,  thus 
proclaims  his  setiments: — ''  The  time  for  compromise 
has  passed,  and  we  are  now  determined  to  maintain 
our  position,  and  make  all  who  oppose  us  smell 
southern  gunpowder  and  feel  southern  steel."  And 
this  short  utterance  epitomizes  the  spirit  and  temper 
of  the  Chief  Conspirator,  when  he  was  commencing 
the  despotic  reign  which  has  just  been  so  ignomini- 

ously  closed  by  Col.  Pritchard  at  Irwinsville.  By  the 
light  of  events  we  now  learn,  what  was  not  surmised 
by  the  most  sagacious  at  the  time,  that  the  Rebellion 
was  all  armed,  equipped,  in  line  of  battle  and  thirst- 
ing for  the  sanguinary  fray,  before  the  future  Con- 
queror of  the  Rebellion  had  convinced  himself  that 
any  blood  would  be  shed,  or  had  systematised  any 
plan  of  counteracting  the  revolutionary  agencies, 
which  were  threatenins;  his  own  and  the  nation's 
life.  So  far,  however,  from  regarding  the  hesitancy 
of  the  President  at  the  outset,  to  avow  any  radical 
or  even  any  methodized  policy,  of  dealing  with  the 
rebellion,  as  proof  of  imbecilitj^,  I  accept  it  as  conclu- 
sive evidence  of  genuine  greatness  and  strength. 
He  was  ignorant  of  its  implacable  determination 
like  every  other  man  guileless  of  complicity  with  it, 
and  a  premature  radical  policy  would  have  subjected 
him  instantly,  to  the  reproach  from  a  vast  majority 
of  his  countrymen,  of  stimulating  an   undeveloped 


23 

and  embryo  crime,  which  conciHation  and  caution 
might  strangle  ;  and  any  policy,  while  the  insurrec- 
tion was  miorganized,  would  have  clearly  convicted 
him  of  the  hollowness  and  insincerity  of  the  mere 
pretender.  It  would  have  implied  superhuman  pre- 
vision, sublime  conceit,  or  arrant  quackery.  He  was 
about  assuming  the  helm  of  Government,  when  the 
tempest  was  abroad  in  its  fury,  when  every  headland 
was  buried  in  storm  and  darkness,  when  every  Pha- 
ros as  well  as  the  eternal  lights  of  Heaven  were 
extinguished,  when  the  needle  was  no  longer  true  to 
the  pole,  when  all  prognostics  failed,  when  all  charts 
and  tables  of  previous  navigators  were  at  fault,  and 
the  laboring  ship  must  be  steered  over  the  wide  and 
pathless  ocean  by  conjecture  alone.  This  was  no 
time  for  laying  out  her  bearings  and  course  for  a 
four  years'  voyage,  and  our  wise  and  truthful  Pilot, 
avowing  manfully  his  infirmity,  in  such  an  unparal- 
leled tornado,  and  reverently  invoking  divine  guid- 
ance, prudently  abstained,  during  that  memorable 
progress,  from  committing  himself  to  any  rigid  and 
inflexible  theory,  which  would  prevent  him  after- 
wards, from  adapting  his  measures  to  the  growth  and 
development  of  the  monstrous  anomaly,  and  of  justi- 
fying his  policy  by  its  frighful  vicissitudes  and  crime. 
Nor  is  the  language  of  his  Inaugural  much  more 
decisive.     His  temper  and  spirit  towards  it  is  most 


24 

forbearing  and  admirable.  He  is  not  yet  authorized 
to  treat  it  as  a  maniac,  and  therefore  addresses  it  as 
a  perverse  but  accountable  creature.  So  far  as  the 
Rebellion  had  evinced  its  character  and  intentions, 
just  so  far  his  plan  of  dealing  with  it  was  therein 
frankly  and  unmistakably  announced.  It  undertook 
to  vindicate  its  revolutionary  attitude,  by  pretending 
to  fear  an  unauthorized  destruction  of  Slavery  in  the 
States,  and  the  new  President,  as  in  duty  bound,  in 
his  first  official  address  disclaimed  for  himself  and 
his  supporters  any  such  purpose,  both  by  a  full  and 
pointed  denial,  and  by  ample  citation  of  the  antece- 
dent and  recorded  declarations  of  the  Eepublican 
party  and  its  Chief  In  prosecution  of  its  purposes 
the  rebellion  had  already  seized  Forts,  Navy  Yards, 
Custom  Houses,  Arsenals,  and  had  prohibited  the 
collection  of  duties,  and  he  calmly  but  decisively 
declares,  that  "  the  power  confided  to  him  will  be 
used,  to  hold,  occupy  and  possess  the  property 
and  places  belonging  to  the  Government,  and  to 
collect  the  duties  and  imports."  And  that  this 
might  not  seem  too  threatening  a  declaration,  he 
adds  the  important  qualification,  that  "  beyond 
what  may  be  necessary  for  these  objects,  there 
will  be  no  invasion,  no  using  of  force  against  or 
among  the  people  anywhere."  In  deference  to  the 
irritation   which   prevailed   in    the    insurrectionary 


25 

States,  he  expressly  foregoes  the  right  of  appointing 
obnoxious  strans^ers  to  Federal  offices  within  their 
limits,  and  promises  that  the  mails  shall  be  furnished 
to  all  parts  of  the  Union,  until  they  are  violently 
repelled. 

In  this  brief  statement,  I  have  condensed  all  the 
foreshadowings  of  a  policy,  which  this  wise  and 
unfaltering  President  vouchsafed  to  the  world,  when 
consciously  entering  uj)on  the  most  perilous  era  of 
our  history,  and  assuming  the  most  momentous 
responsibilities.  While  we  have  in  it  but  one  sen- 
tence, which  even  the  over-sensitive  chivalry  could 
construe  into  a  menace,  we  are  prodigally  furnished 
with  conciliatory  promises,  and  with  such  winning 
arguments  and  admonitions  only,  as  a  tender  father 
might  employ  with  a  wayward  offspring.  Up  to  the 
time  when  he  took  the  oath  of  office  upon  the  east- 
ern portico  of  the  Capitol,  he  had  pushed  forbear- 
ance beyond  the  point  where  it  ceases  to  be  a  virtue, 
and  it  is  jDerfectly  apparent  that  it  had  not  yet 
dawned  upon  him,  that  his  hand  was  soon  to  wield 
a  scourge,  terrible  enough  to  chastise  two  God-defy- 
ing centuries  of  crime,  or  that  his  chief  mission  to 
this  earth  was  to  conduct  a  nation  through  the  jaws 
of  death  and  the  gates  of  hell,  to  regenerated  and 
immortal  life. 

Let  me  now  attempt  to  ascertain,  at  what  precise 


26 

period  he  abandoned  this  preconceived  and  cherished 
idea  of  compromising  the  embroilment  by  a  mere 
warhke  demonstration,  and  let  me  also  attempt  to 
analyze  the  difficulties,  which,  a  resolution  in  favor  of 
uncompromising  and  aggressive  hostilities,  encounters 
from  his  conservative  habits,  from  his  peculiar  emo- 
tional and  intellectual  organization,  and  reproduce, 
as  far  as  I  am  able,  the  arguments,  which  persuaded 
his  placable  and  scrupulous  mind  to  the  unhesitating 
and  implacable  purpose  of  exercising  all  the  tre- 
mendous powers  conferred  upon  him  by  the  Rights 
of  War,  and  of  grasping  every  weapon  in  its  terrible 
arsenal. 

The  Time,  when  this  decided  change  in  his  pur- 
pose first  appears,  was  more  than  a  month  after  our 
flag  was  struck  from  Sumpter's  crumbling  battle- 
ments, more  than  a  month  after  that  bugle  blast 
which  summoned  seventy-five  thousand  men  to  arms, 
a  month  at  least  after  the  bloody  baptism  of  Massa- 
chusetts troops  in  the  streets  of  Baltimore.  We  have 
his  own  authentic  manifestoes  to  demonstrate,  that 
as  late  as  the  first  of  May,  1861,  he  had  not  aban- 
doned temporizing  expedients,  and  we  learn  by 
evidence  equally  conclusive,  that  before  the  month 
had  closed,  he  had  finally  resolved  to  turn  upon  the 
inveterate  Rebellion  the  unbridled  wrath  of  War. 
The  hour,  when  doubt  and  hesitancy  first  yielded  to 


27 

the  stern  command  of  remorseless  duty,  must  have 
been  the  soberest,  saddest,  solemnest  of  his  faithful 
life,  not  from  doubt  of  the  result,  though  that  was 
sufficiently  perplexing ;  not  from  fear  of  the  conse_ 
quences,  though  these  were  appalling  enough ;  not 
from  the  weight  of  responsibility,  though  that  might 
have  staggered  the  most  unyielding  determination, 
but  it  was  sad  and  solemn,  because  Abraham  Lincoln, 
above  and  beyond  all  other  men,  loved  Peace  and 
hated  War;  because  seiges,  battles,  strife,  swords, 
bayonets,  rifles,  cannon,  all  the  paraphernalia  and 
instruments  of  brute  force,  were  abhorrent  to  his 
enlio-htened  and  benevolent  nature.  Shall  we  raise 
the  latch,  and  enter  in  to  the  secret  chamber  of  that 
capacious  and  genial  soul,  when  this  fell  resolve  was 
first  reached,  when  the  frightful  vision  of  War,  in  all 
its  terrors  clad,  supplants  there  the  hope  of  concilia- 
tion and  the  dream  of  peace  ?  I  speak,  what  I  heard 
from  his  own  lips  when  I  say,  that  it  was  reached 
after  sleepless  nights,  after  a  severe  conflict  with 
himself,  and  with  extreme  reluctance.  By  a  strange 
and  cruel  freak  of  fate,  the  duty  of  waging  the 
bloodiest  war  in  history  was  imposed  upon  the  most 
peace  loving  and  amiable  ruler  in  all  time,  upon  a 
man  whose  maxim  was  (in  the  language  of  one  of 
his  favorite  texts,)  "let  the  potsherd  strive  with  the 
potsherds  of  the  Earth" — and  into  whose  mind,  had 


28 

been  thoroughly  ingrained  that  traditional  notion  of 
our  politics,  that  the  first  drop  of  blood,  shed  in  a 
sectional  strife,  was  the  death-knell  of  the  American 
Union, 

Let  us  enter  in,  where  that  now  disembodied  spirit 
was,  in  the  recesses  of  its  clay  tenement,  in  stormy 
debate  with  itself.  What  throes,  what  agony  do  we 
witness !  What  heart  rending  sobs,  what  heaven 
piercing  prayers  that  the  cup  may  pass  from  his  lips ! 
Here  was  that  conservative  mind,  trained  to  habits  of 
professional  caution,  with  the  strongest  bias  towards 
legality  and  moderation,  which  had  uniformly  steered 
itself  by  the  certain  lights  of  jurisprudence,  which 
had  invoked  no  remedies  but  the  peaceful  ones  of 
the  Courts,  the  Constitution  and  the  Law,  which  had 
never  combated  Error  but  with  reason  and  persua- 
sion alone,  and  had  abjured  the  ordeal  of  battle  and 
the  arbitrament  of  force,  as  obsolete  and  heathenish 
enormities.  Here  are  all  these  mature,  earnest  opin- 
ions and  prepossessions,  all  dominant  from  fifty  years 
of  undisputed  sway,  wrestling  impotently  with  the 
War  ideas  and  the  overmastering  War  Revelation  of 
yesterday.  What  an  unwelcome  intruder  the  con- 
viction is  to  the  serene  virtues,  which  had  hitherto 
exclusively  occupied  this  holy  sanctuary.  Domesti- 
cated here  are  Justice  and  Mercy,  ("and  earthly 
power  is  likest  God's  when  Mercy  seasons  Justice.") 


29 

Justice  and  Mercy,  which  hold  the  balances  quite 
evenly,  but  the  hair's  weight  which  oscillates  them, 
uniformly  found  in  Mercy's  scale,  and  how  repulsive 
it  is  to  these  righteous  and  discriminating  attributes, 
to  let  loose  upon  the  people  a  wild  and  furious 
Avenger  that  devours  alike  innocence  and  guilt? 
Here  too  dwell  sensibilities  and  affections  so  acute, 
that  they  fling  wide  open  the  doors  of  the  soul  to 
every  one  who  approaches  in  Misfortune's  name, 
grant  the  prayer  of  Sorrow  before  it  is  half  uttered, 
and  which  the  small  inarticulate  wail  of  infancy 
instantly  melts  into  tears  of  most  compassionate  ten- 
derness; how  are  these  sensitive  fibers  wrung  and 
tortured  when  it  suddenly  flashes  upon  them,  that 
the  loving  hand  which  has  only  learned  to  soothe 
and  relieve  the  miserable,  is  commissioned  by  inex- 
orable fate,  to  break  the  fourth  seal  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse, and,  "  behold  a  pale  horse !  and  his  name  who 
sat  on  him  was  Death  and  Hell  followed  him;  and 
power  was  given  unto  them  over  the  fourth  part  of 
the  earth,  to  kill  with  the  sword  and  with  hunger 
and  with  Death  and  with  the  beasts  of  the  earth." 
Movelessly,  movelessly  rooted  also  in  this  great  heart, 
is  a  superfine  sense  of  humor,  craving  hilarity  and 
harmless  mirth,  and  joy-inspiring  wit  and  anecdote, 
as  the  only  effectual  relief  to  an  over  anxious  spirit 
and  an  over-tasked  brain,  and  how  reluctantly  does 


30 

this  part  of  liis  nature  admit  to  close  companionship, 
the  gkiouiy  forebodings,  the  bitter  memories,  the 
dreadful  uncertainties,  the  everlasting  shrieks,  dirges, 
vengeful  tragedies,  and  heart-rending  atrocities  of 
War. 

In  addition  to  the  protest  of  these  conservative 
habits,  and  amiable  emotions,  upon  his  adoption  of 
any  radical  and  thorough-going  policy  of  grappling 
with  the  Rebellion,  he  was  also,  like  many  others, 
held  back  for  a  season,  by  the  legal  scruples  which 
his  reflecting  faculties  were  constantly  suggesting. 
"  Beset,"  as  it  has  been  well  said,  "by  fanatics  of  prin- 
ciple, on  one  side,  who  would  give  no  heed  to  the 
limitations  of  his  written  authority,  and  b}^  fanatics 
of  party,  on  the  other,  who  were  not  only  deaf  to  the 
obligations  of  justice,  but  would  hear  of  no  policy 
large  enough  for  a  revolutionary  emergency,  Mr. 
Lincoln  never  forgot,  for  an  instant,  that  he  was  a 
constitutional  ruler."  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  which  it  takes  but  twenty  minutes  to  read,  can 
be  studied  for  twice  twenty  years,  without  exhaust- 
ing its  meaning,  or  comprehending  its  vast  treasury 
of  express  and  implied  power.  Like  most  of  our 
statesmen  the  attention  of  the  President,  had  been 
exclusively  turned  to  the  Peace  side  of  the  instru- 
ment, to  the  provisions  which  address  themselves  to 
conditions  of  unbroken  amity,  domestic  tranquility, 


o 


1 


to  the  preservation  of  amicable  relations  between  the 
States,  and  to  the  development,  under  their  auspices, 
of  commerce,  industry,  manufactures  and  trade. 
The  powers  it  grants  over  internal  improvements, 
over  foreign  and  inter-State  commerce,  currency, 
duties  and  imposts,  territories,  naturalization,  taxation, 
bankruptcy,  as  well  as  the  extent  of  constitutional 
limitations  upon  the  General  Government,  and  of 
constitutional  prohibitions  upon  the  States,  have  not 
only  been  subjects  of  constant  individual  study,  but 
have  been  illustrated  and  defined,  by  a  long,  lumin- 
ous and  comprehensive  series  of  judicial  determina- 
tions, which  have  the  same  authority  and  validity  as 
if  they  were  incorporated  into  the  Constitution  itself 
We  can  all  see,  at  a  glance,  how  greatly  these  inves- 
tigations and  decisions  have  contributed  to  consoli- 
date the  Union  and  to  enlarge  and  strengthen  the 
influence  of  the  National  government.  But  Courts 
and  individuals  have  alike  ignored  the  War  side  of 
the  Constitution,  or  drawn  but  feebly  upon  that 
slumbering  element  in  our  system,  which  holds  each 
revolving  planet  in  complete  subjection  to  the  sun. 

What  are  its  powers  over  States  which  abjure 
allegiance,  and  conspire  together  for  its  destruction 
and  overthrow,  and  raise  armies,  and  wage  War 
against  it,  was,  fortunately,  a  question  which  no 
judicial  tribunal  had  been    called  upon   to  adjudi- 


32 

cate,  which  no  curious  theorizer  had  even  mooted? 
and  which  Mr.  Lincoln  himself  for  the  first  time 
investigated  in  the  third  month  of  his  administration 
— that  parturiant  and  groaning  May.  He  then  con- 
centrated his  attention  upon  the  War  powers  of  our 
organic  law,  and  found  in  this  terra  incognita,  unex- 
pected resources  which  never  yet  had  contributed 
to  the  weight,  and  vigor,  and  terror  of  the  Federal 
arm.  The  elements  of  strength  and  power  which 
were  hid  away,  in  the  weighty  clauses^  which  give 
to  the  President  and  Congress  the  issues  of  Peace 
and  War,  were  dragged  to  light  and  employed  for 
the  salvation  of  the  Republic. 

By  the  middle  of  May  the  doubt  and  haze  which 
had  settled  upon  the  legal  relation  of  the  Insurgent 
States  to  the  Government,  began  to  disappear.  On 
the  sixth  of  that  month,  the  Confederate  Congress 
at  Montgomery,  declared  war  against  the  United 
States,  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  position,  at  this  time, 
towards  the  gigantic  peril  which  threatened  our 
national  existence,  was  described  with  legal  exact- 
ness and  accuracy,  when  it  was  said  to  him  b}^  an 
eminent  civilian — "If  the  whole  unvarnished  truth 
is  told  you,  sir,  you  are  confronted  by  a  de  facto 
Rebellion,  and  a  de  facto  War,  and  you  are  justified 
in  treating  it  as  the  one,  as  the  other,  and  as  both." 
With  equal  truth  it  was  shortly  afterwards  said,  in 
the  United  States  Senate,  "  it  is  a  Rebellion   swollen 


33 

to  the  proportions  of  a  War,  and  it  is  a  War  deriving 
its  life  from  Rebellion.  It  is  no  less  of  a  Rebellion 
because  of  its  full  blown  grandeur,  nor  is  it  less  a 
War  because  of  the  traitorous  source  from  whence 
it  draws  its  life."  What  are  my  constitutional 
resources  against  this  new,  strange,  and  double 
headed  monster  ?  was  the  first  question  which  Mr. 
Lincoln  put  to  himself,  and  this  question,  grave, 
severe,  and  momentous  as  was  ever  submitted  to 
human  arbitrament,  he  was  called  upon,  witliout 
precedent,  without  authority,  and  from  his  habits  of 
mind  without  assistance,  forthwith  to  determine  by 
his  peculiar  process  of  divination. 

The  Constitution,  does  it  not?  establishes  in  law 
and  in  fact,  an  independent  government.  By  that 
act  alone,  all  the  belligerent  rights,  which  from  time 
immemorial,  bv  international  law  belong  to  inde- 
pendent  governments,  were  instantly  conveyed  to 
the  new  born  nation.  Yes,  yes,  they  were  all  ours 
by  the  title  which  secured  us  a  place  in  the  family 
of  nations.  In  abeyance  during  peace,  they  instantly 
vest  with  the  first  act  of  War,  and  with  full  grown 
vehemence  and  power  surrender  themselves  to 
execute  our  behests,  against  all  of  our  public  ene- 
mies whether  they  rally  under  the  bastard  banner  of 
an  Insurgent  State,  or  the  legitimate  Hag  of  a 
recognized  nation. 
3 


34 

But  not  only  did  Mr.  Lincoln  find  full  belligerent 
rights,  according  to  the  laws  and  usages  of  nations, 
and  against  all  armed  foes,  implied  in  the  independ- 
ent government  which  the  Constitution  creates  and 
endows  with  the  powers  of  self-defence,  but  he  found, 
also,  that  they  all  directly  and  necessarily  flow  from 
the  express  provisions  of  the  instrument.  What  is 
War?  oh  doubting  Didymus !  According  to  the 
books,  it  is  "contention  by  force  for  the  purpose  of  par- 
alyzing an  enemy."  Congress  has  power,  has  it  not? 
"  to  declare  war,"  and  what  is  this  but  lifting  the 
gate  and  opening  the  sluiceway  which  sets  in  motion 
all  the  legitimate  machinery  which  is  required  to 
paralyze  an  enemy?  Congress  has  power,  has  it 
not  ?  "  to  grant  letters  of  marque  and  reprisal ";  and 
what  is  this  but  commissioning  two  of  the  peculiar 
agencies  of  war,  to  follow  the  property  of  the  enemy 
wherever  it  flees,  for  the  purpose  of  punishing  and 
impoverishing  him.  Congress  has  power  "  to  make 
rules  concerning  captures  on  land  and  water,"  and 
what  is  this  but  providing  directly  for  the  exercise 
of  seizure,  forfeiture,  contribution,  confiscation,  liber- 
ation. In  the  power  conferred  upon  Congress,  "  to 
raise  and  support  armies,"  "  to  provide  and  maintain 
a  navy,"  "  to  make  rules  for  the  government  of  the 
land  and  naval  forces,"  "to  provide  for  the  calling 
forth  of  the  militia,  to  execute  the  laws  of  the  Union, 


35 

suppress  insurrection  and  repel  invasions,"  and,  in 
the  clinching  and  decisive  clause  which  empowers  it 
"  to  make  all  laws  necessary  and  proper"  for  carry- 
ing these  enumerated  powers  into  execution,  he 
found  plenary  authority  for  employing,  in  its  ex- 
tremest  rigor,  every  right  of  war  against  rebels  in 
arms. 

Turning  away  then,  from  the  pages  of  the  Consti- 
tution which  confer  belligerent  rights,  he  reperused  the 
article  which  deals  with  Rebellion  as  a  crime,  and 
provides  for  it  a  criminal  punishment,  to  be  enforced 
in  the  Courts,  by  the  peaceful  processes  of  the  munici- 
pal law;  and  he  finds  that  levying  war  against  the 
United  States  and  adhering  to  their  enemies  is  trea- 
son, and  is  liable  to  all  the  pains,  penalties  and  for- 
feitures which  are  visited  upon  that  crime. 
.  From  this  long  review,  Mr.  Lincoln  rose  with  the 
conviction,  that  for  the  overthrow  of  the  rebels  he 
might  draw  upon  two  fountains,  and  a  double  source 
of  power,  the  Constitution  and  the  rights  of  luar ;  that 
as  criminals  he  might  pursue  them  by  the  slow  and 
guarded  processes  of  the  first,  but  that  as  enemies,  he 
could  wither  them  with  all  the  dread  ao-encies  and 
summary  vengeance  of  the  last,  and  he  rose,  too, 
with  the  full  determination  from  which  he  never 
afterwards  deflected,  to  draw  upon  both  magazines, 
to  fight  from  both  batteries,  and  with  all  their  thunder. 


36 

The  powers  thus  claimed,  are  all  indubitably  con- 
ferred, and  may  be  all  unquestionably  used,  unless 
in  behalf  of  rebels  in  arms,  you  urge  the  preposter- 
ous plea  that  they  are  not  enemies  because  they  are 
traitors,  thereby  constituting  broken  faith,  violated 
oaths,  and  avowed  treason,  titles  to  immunity 
from  ,the  penalties  of  war,  and  thus  disfranchise  an 
independent  nation  of  every  belligerent  right  against 
those  foes,  who  have  once  owed  it  allegiance,  and  to 
the  guilt  of  treason  have  added  that  of  unjust  war. 

If,  in  addition  to  the  considerations  I  have  urged 
in  favor  of  these  positions,  time  would  permit  me  to 
cite  the  judgments  of  the  Supreme  Court,  I  could 
present  precise  points,  raised  in  admiralty  appeals, 
and  ruled  by  such  judges  as  Marshall,  Livingstone, 
Tilghman,  Taney,  Grier  and  Nelson,  which  establish 
the  principle,  that  the  United  States  engaged  in  sup- 
pressing an  insurrection  of  its  citizens,  may  with 
entire  consistency  treat  them  as  criminals,  as  enemies, 
and  as  both,  and  may,  with  equal  consistency,  also 
act  in  the  two-fold  capacity  of  sovereign  and  belligerent, 
according  to  the  several  measures  resorted  to  for  the 
accomplishment  of  its  purpose.  By  inflicting,  through 
its  agent  the  Judiciary,  the  penalty  which  the  law 
affixes  to  the  capital  crimes  of  treason  and  piracy,  it 
treats  them  as  criminals,  and  acts  in  its  capacity  as  a 
sovereign,  and  its  courts  are  but  enforcing  its  municipal 


37 

regulations.  By  instituting  a  blockade  of  the  ports 
of  its  rebellious  citizens,  invading  their  territory, 
sequestrating  their  property,  and  emancipating  their 
slaves,  the  Government  treats  them  as  enemies,  and 
exercises  its  rights  as  a  belligerent,  and  its  courts,  in 
their  adjudication  upon  capture,  seizures,  and  forfeit- 
ures, are  organized  as  courts  of  prize,  under  the  law 
of  nations.^ 

I  have  dwelt  longer,  than  may  be  deemed  judi- 
cious by  some,  upon  the  process  by  which  Abraham 
Lincoln's  mind  was  gradually  led,  from  vague  and 
undefined  notions,  to  defined  and  accurate  views  of 
the  relations  of  the  armed  insurgent  to  the  Federal 
Government,  because  it  lies  at  the  very  root  of  his 
Administration  of  the  War,  because  it  vindicates  his 
Constitutional  fidelity,  because,  just  as  the  future 
forest  once  lay  in  the  acorn's  cup,  just  as  the  full 
grown  Rebellion  once  lay,  in  the  pestilent  heresy  of 
Calhoun,  just  so  clearly  and  conspicuously  its  inevit- 
able death  lay,  in  the  fundamental  and  germinant 
idea,  that  as  criminals  they  were  subject  to  all  the 
penalties  of  the  Constitution,  and  as  enemies  to  all  the 
legal  consequences  of  War, 

In  that  classic  drama,  which  first  revealed  to  the 
w^orld  the  masterly  genius  of  Talford,  unhappy  Ion 

*  Upton's  Maritime  Warfare  and  Prize,  p.  212. 


38 

proceeds  upon  the  task,  to  which  he  was  called  by 
the  audible  voice  of  the  gods,  with  a  firm  hand  and 
unfaltering  will,  but  with  supreme  pity  and  tender- 
ness towards  the  father  he  was  doomed  to  slay. 
With  as  compassionate  a  heart,  with  as  complete 
exemption  from  all  vengeful  passions,  but  with  as 
unswerving  and  constant  a  determination,  this  gentle 
President  now  dedicates  his  arm  to  the  destruction  of 
the  Rebellion.  And  from  this  time  forward  all  vas- 
cillation,  compunction,  and  even  debate,  apparently 
disappear  from  his  mind,  as  if  he  had  accepted  and 
surrendered  himself  to  a  vengeful  destiny,  or  as  if  he 
regarded  himself  as  the  mere  instrument  of  working 
out  a  great  cause,  which  he  was  constrained  to  recog- 
nize, but  powerless  to  control.  Forthwith,  rise  like 
exhalations  that  impregnable  cordon  of  earthworks 
in. which  Washington  has  securely  reposed,  forthwith 
the  guns  of  Fort  McHenry,  and  the  broadside  of  a 
man  of  war  admonish  the  Plug  Uglies  of  Baltimore, 
that  the  main  thoroughfare  to  the  Capital  must  here- 
after be  inviolate,  forthwith  the  Ohio  contingent  is 
ordered  to  sweep  every  hostile  banner  from  the 
mountain  fastnesses  of  West  Virginia,  forthwith  But- 
ler, from  Fortress  Monroe,  hurls  a  forlorn  hope  against 
the  counterscarps  of  Big  Bethel,  forthwith  the  tented 
villages  disappear,  like  snow  flakes,  from  the  sur- 
rounding fields  of  the  Metropolis,  and  the  rumbling 


39 

of  artillery  waggons  upon  every  bridge,  and  the  long 
lines  of  glittering  bayonets  which  reflect  the  waters 
of  the  Potomac,  proclaim  that  the  Rubicon  is  passed, 
and  the  sacred  soil  invaded,  forthwith,  in  his  first 
message,  he  informs  Congress,  that  "  he  has  invoked 
the  War  power,"  and  calls  for  four  hundred  thousand 
men  and  four  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  that  "the 
conflict  may  be  short  and  decisive,"  and  when  it 
passes  the  Non-Intercourse  Act,  the  Confiscation  Act, 
the  Suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus,  they  are  forth- 
with approved,  for  in  determining  that  the  Govern- 
ment was  endowed,  in  time  of  War,  with  unabridged 
belligerent  rights,  he  had  settled  a  principle  which 
underlies  all  these  controverted  measures. 

In  the  seven  months  which  follow,  he  evinces  an 
administrative  vigor  that  would  have  satisfied  Napo- 
leon the  Great,  but  it  was  all  alas !  counteracted,  by 
a  military  imbecility  in  his  Generals  that  was  fairly 
sublime.  It  is  the  era  of  almost  unrelieved  disaster, 
commencing  with  the  ineffaceable  disgrace  of  Bull 
Run  and  terminating  only  with  the  capture  of  Fort 
Donelson,  which  first  introduced  to  the  country  an 
immortal  name,  and  initiited  a  career  which  has 
steadily  marched  on  from  victory  to  victory,  and 
from  Alp  to  Alp,  up  to  the  crowning  summit  of  mili- 
tary grandeur,  where  Ulysses  S.  Grant  now  stands 
unchallenged  and  secure. 


40 

How  nobly  the  President  bore  himself,  during  this 
interval  of  darkness  that  could  be  felt,  when  bold 
men  trembled  at  every  click  of  the  telegraph,  let 
two  tributes  offered  by  unfriendly  voices  to  his  Stoi- 
cism attest :  the  first,  is  from  no  less  a  master  of  it 
than  Napoleon  the  Third,  who  epigramatically  says : 
"Mr.  Lincoln's  highest  claim  upon  my  admiration,  is 
a  Roman  equanimity,  which  has  been  tried  by  both 
extremes  of  fortune  and  disturbed  by  neither;"  the 
second,  is  from  a  hostile  Englishman  who  says,  that 
"tried  by  years  of  failure,  without  achieving  one 
great  success,  he  not  only  never  yielded  to  despond- 
ency or  anger,  but  what  is  most  marvellous,  con- 
tinually grew  in  self-possession  and  magnanimity." 
I  once  myself  ventured  to  ask  the  President,  if  he 
had  ever  despaired  of  the  country  ?  and  he  told  me, 
that  "when  the  Peninsular  Campaign  terminated 
suddenly  at  Harrison's  Landing,  I  was  as  nearly 
inconsolable  as  I  could  be  and  live."  In  the  same 
connection  I  inquired,  if  there  had  ever  been  a 
period  in  which  he  thought  that  better  management, 
upon  the  part  of  his  Commanding  General,  might 
have  terminated  the  War?  and  he  answered  that 
there  were  three,  that  the  first  was  at  Malvern  Hill, 
where  McClellan  failed  to  command  an  immediate 
advance  upon  Richmond,  that  the  second  was  at 
Chancellorville,  where    Hooker   failed   to   reinforce 


41 

Sedgwick,  after  hearing  his  cannon  upon  the  extreme 
right,  and  that  the  third  was  after  Lee's  retreat  from 
Gettysburg,  when  Meade  failed  to  attack  him  in  the 
bend  of  the  Potomac.  After  this  commentary  I 
waited  for  an  outburst  of  denunciation,  for  a  criti- 
cism at  least  upon  the  delinquent  officers,  but  I 
waited  in  vain;  so  far  from  a  word  of  censure 
escaping  his  lips,  he  soon  added,  that  his  first  remark 
might  not  appear  uncharitable,  "I  do  not  know  that 
I  could  have  given  different  orders  had  I  been  with 
them  myself;  I  have  not  fully  made  up  my  mind 
how  I  should  behave,  when  minnie  balls  were  whist- 
ling and  these  great  oblong  shells  shrieking  in  my 
ear.  I  might  run  away."  The  interview,  which  I 
am  recalling,  was  last  summer,  just  after  Gen.  Fre- 
mont had  declined  to  run  against  him  for  the  Presi- 
dency. The  magnificent  Bible,  which  the  negroes 
of  Washington  had  just  presented  him,  lay  upon  the 
table,  and  while  we  were  both  examining  it,  I  recited 
the  somewhat  remarkable  passage  from  the  Chroni- 
cles; "Eastward  were  six  Levites,  northward  four  a 
day,  southward  four  a  day  and  towards  Assuppim 
two  and  two,  at  Parbar  westward,  four  at  the  cause- 
way and  two  at  Parbar."  He  immediately  chal- 
lenged me  to  find  any  such  passage  as  that  in  his 
Bible.  After  I  had  pointed  it  out  to  him,  and  he 
was  satisfied  of  its  genuineness,  he  asked  me  if  I 


42 

remembered  the  text  which  his  friends  had  recently 
applied  to  Fremont,  and  instantly  turned  to  a  verse 
in  the  first  of  Samuel,  put  on  his  spectacles,  and  read 
in  his  slow,  peculiar  and  waggish  tone, — "And  every 
one  that  was  in  distress,  and  every  one  that  was  in 
debt,  and  every  one  that  was  discontented  gathered 
themselves  unto  him;  and  he  became  a  Captain  over 
them :  and  there  were  with  him  about  four  hundred 
men."  I  am  here  reminded  of  an  impressive  remark, 
which  he  made  to  me  upon  another  occasion  and 
which  I  shall  never  forget.  He  said,  he  had  never 
united  himself  to  any  church,  because  he  found  diffi- 
culty in  giving  his  assent,  without  mental  reserva- 
tion, to  the  long  complicated  statements  of  Christian 
doctrine,  which  characterize  their  Articles  of  belief 
and  Confessions  of  Faith.  "  When  any  church,"  he 
continued,  "will  inscribe  over  its  altar,  as  its  sole 
qualification  for  membership  the  Saviour's  condensed 
statement  of  the  substance  of  both  law  and  Gospel, 
'Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul  and  with  all  thy  mind, 
and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,'  that  church  will  I  join 
with  all  my  heart  and  all  my  soul."  The  books 
which  he  chiefly  read,  in  his  leisure  hours  were,  the 
Bible,  Shakspeare,  the  peasant  poet  of  Scotland,  with 
whom  his  sympathies  were  very  acute,  and  those 
peculiar  ofF-shoots  of  American  wit,  of  which  Orpheus 


43 

C.  Kerr,  Artemas  "Ward,  and  Doesticks  are  types. 
I  frequently  saw  all  these  books  in  his  hands,  during 
a  voyage  of  three  days  upon  the  Potomac,  when  the 
party  consisted  only  of  the  President  and  his  family, 
the  Secretary  of  War  and  his  aid  and  myself 

The  ten  months  which  divide  the  fall  of  Fort 
Donelson,  (February  16th,  1862,)  from  the  battle  of 
Fredericksburg,  (December  13th,  1862,)  constitute 
the  depressing  era  of  military  uncertainty.  Admin- 
istrative ability,  executive  resolution  and  hardihood, 
were  never  more  impressively  displayed  than  during 
this  disheartening  period,  but  in  spite  of  it,  incon- 
stant victory  seems  to  vibrate  between  the  hostile 
banners. 

The  encouraging  results  of  luka  and  Corinth,  and 
the  opening  of  the  Upper  Mississippi,  inspire  the 
national  heart  with  new  confidence  in  the  jDrotection 
of  Heaven  and  in  the  heroism  of  our  western  sol- 
diers. Brave  old  Farragut  earns  the  grade  of  Admi- 
ral, and  the  soubriquet  of  Salamander,  by  leading 
his  thundering  Armada,  through  the  feu  d'  enfer, 
which  belched  from  Fort  Phillip  on  the  right,  and 
Fort  Jackson  on  the  left,  and  the  martial  and  financial 
heart  of  rebellion  in  the  Southwest,  is  palsied  when 
the  guns  of  his  fleet  sweep  the  streets  of  New 
Orleans,  and  the  Tamer  of  Cities  hangs  up  its  scalp 
in  his  wigwam.     War  surges  and  resurges  over  the 


44 

devoted  plains  of  Missouri  and  Arkansas.  •  The  Pen- 
insula Campaign,  with  its  chequered  fortunes,  alter- 
nately excites  exultation  and  wailing,  but  its 
final  failure  plants  in  the  National  heart  the  seeds  of 
despair,  while  the  whirlwind  which  devours  the  army 
of  Pope,  constrains  us  to  doubt  the  justice  of  God. 
The  victories  of  South  Mountain  and  Antietam, 
fairly  costing  their  weight  in  gore,  and  turning  to 
ashes  in  our  grasp,  failed  to  reanimate  our  hopes, 
while  Pittsburg  Landing  and  Shiloh,  are  more  than 
counterpoised  by  the  heart  rending  butchery  of 
Fredericksburg. 

The  progress  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind  from  his  plan 
of  colonizing  the  slave,  and  after  that  was  abandoned, 
to  compensated  liberation,  and  from  this  expedient 
to  unconditional  emancipation,  is  analogous  to  the 
deliberate  advance,  which  I  have  already  detailed, 
from  a  conservative  to  a  thorough  going  policy,  in 
the  prosecution  of  the  war.  Unlike  the  first,  how- 
ever, in  these  last  transitions  he  meets  wdth  no 
resistence  from  the  philanthropies  of  his  nature,  but 
encouraged  and  stimulated  by  the  complete  accord 
of  emotion  and  reason.  To  be  self-willed  in  a  revo- 
lutionary crisis,  and  to  exclaim  "Justice  shall  be 
omnipotent  though  the  Heavens  fall,"  are  unques- 
tionably sublime  manifestations,  but  in  such  immi- 
nent peril,  it  is  rather  the  sublimity  of  madness  than 


45 

of  wisdom,  I  can  not  withhold  my  tribute  of  grati- 
tude and  admiration,  to  the  caution  and  address, 
with  which  Mr.  Lincoln  has  felt  his  way,  timeing  his 
march  to  the  beat  of  the  popular  heart,  and  answer- 
ing no  requisitions  of  the  popular  will  until  it  was 
thoroughly  mature  and  unmistakably  pronounced. 
He  had  settled  the  principle  upon  which  emancipa- 
tion is  defended,  and  was  unquestionably  ripe  for  it 
himself,  when  he  first  resolved  to  exercise  the  bellii!:- 
erent  rights  which  belonged  to  the  Government,  in 
time  of  war,  but  he  was  deterred  from  exercising 
the  right  of  liberation,  from  the  apprehension  of  a 
counter  revolution  in  the  North,  and  that  his  fears 
were  not  entirely  groundless,  that  remarkable  polit- 
ical revulsion,  in  the  fall  elections  which  immediately 
follow  his  preliminary  proclamation,  abundantly 
demonstrates.  When,  however,  his  convictions  of 
the  justice  of  emancipation  were  enforced,  by  the 
logic  of  continued  failure,  and  by  the  incisive  rea- 
soning of  the  enemy's  unyielding  sword,  he  was  led 
up,  in  spite  of  his  fears,  to  the  height  of  that  trans- 
cendent Edict,  which  constitutes  his  strongest  claim 
upon  universal  and  unendmg  gratitude  and  remem- 
brance. He  assumed  the  Presidential  chair,  with  a 
solemn  disavowal  of  any  constitutional  right  to  inter- 
fere with  slavery  in  the  States,  and  if  they  had  con- 
tinued faithful  to  the  Constitution,  their  cherished 


46 

barbarity,  condemned  as  it  was  by  all  his  moral 
instincts,  would  have  been  safe  in  the  inviolable 
sanctity  of  his  oath.  But  when  they  appealed  to 
War,  and  voluntarily  renounced  the  safeguards  of 
the  Constitution,  they  instantly  handed  over  the 
abhorrence  of  civilization  to  uncovenanted  mercy, 
and  disengaged  two  belligerent  rights,  one  of  which 
is  fatal  to  it,  if  slaves  are  chJtels,  and  the  other  fatal 
if  slaves  are  men.  By  the  most  meliorated  construc- 
tion of  the  international  code,  the  private  property 
of  an  enemy  on  the  land  is  still  liable  to  capture, 
under  circumstances  constituting  a  vecessity,  of  which 
the  conqueror  is  the  sole  judge  ;  while  the  old  and 
austere  authority  of  Vattel  establishes  the  indisputa- 
ble right  in  one  belligerent,  to  break  the  chains  of 
any  oppressed  people  which  the  other  belligerent  is 
depriving  of  liberty,  for  the  purpose  of  completing 
and  ennobling  victory.  Of  these  weapons,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln chose  the  first,  which  is  called  military  neces- 
sity. The  conditional  proclamation  was  for  some 
time  postponed,  awaiting  the  impending  engagement 
in  Maryland,  and  was  finally  promulged  only  five 
days  after  Antietam.  Mr.  Lincoln  required  that  the 
military  urgency  upon  which  it  was  based,  should 
not  only  be  plausible,  but  real  and  imperious,  and 
it  is  now  well  understood  that  if  victory  had  perched 
more   signally  on  our  banners,  and  Lee's  army  had 


47 

been  more  thoroughly  crippled  and  demoralized  in 
that  battle,  the  proclamation  which  restores  to  mil- 
lions of  living  men,  and  to  unborn  generations,  the 
rights  of  manhood,  would  have  been  postponed  to 
an  indefinite  future. 

Are  we  not  here  able  to  interpret  and  explain  one 
of  those  purposes  which  are  sometimes  called  mys- 
terious and  inscrutable  ?  I  can  almost  see  a  mighty 
arm,  stretching  out  of  the  unfathomable  blue,  hasten- 
ing the  fugitive  in  his  flight,  holding  back  the  feet 
of  the  pursuer,  and  arresting  the  waves  of  destruc- 
tion which  are  pouring  upon  the  dismayed  and 
broken  rankvS,  that  the  abyss  which  is  yawning  for 
the  mightiest  of  slavery's  hosts,  may  not  swallow  up 
the  elect  of  liberty  and  the  redemption  of  a  long 
suffering  race.  Assembled  here,  to-day,  to  devoutly 
recognize  that  Providence,  which  guided  the  great 
liberator,  "by  ways  which  he  knew  not  and  by  paths 
which  were  not  known,"  may  we  not  all  of  us,  with- 
out a  discordant  voice,  and  with  the  hope  that  his  own 
ransomed  spirit  is  not  unconscious  of  the  oblation, 
unite  in  the  invocation  which  closes  the  imperisha- 
ble manifesto,  "  Upon  this  act,  believed  to  be  an  act 

OF  JUSTICE  warranted  BY  THE  CONSTITUTION  UPON  MILI- 
TARY NECESSITY,  I  INVOKE  THE  CONSIDERATE  JUDGMENT  OF 
MANKIND  AND  THE  GRACIOUS  FAVOR  OF  AlMIGHTY  GoD." 

The  definitive  proclamation  of  emancipation  was 


48 

promnlged  on  the  first  of  January,  1863,  and  it 
seems  instantly  to  have  been  visited  with  that  "  gra- 
cious favor"  which  it  so  reverently  implores.  From 
that  eventful  date  Federal  ascendencv  flows  surelv 
and  steadily  on  to  the  capture  of  Richmond  and  the 
surrender  of  Lee.  Reverses  and  checks,  it  is  true, 
intervene,  but  they  are  only  eddies  in  the  Amazon. 
During  these  twenty-seven  controlling  months  of  the 
war,  into  which  more  general  engagements  were 
crowded,  than  into  any  equal  period  of  the  world's 
historv,  the  loss  of  but  one,  attests  the  advent  of 
higher  inspiration  and  divine  re-enforcement  to  our 
struo-o-ling;  cause.  The  ink  with  which  the  procla- 
mation  is  written  is  scarcely  dry  upon  the  parch- 
ment, before  the  decisive  victory  of  Murfreesboro 
expels  invasion  from  imperiled  Tennessee.  On 
the  nation's  birthday  which  next  follows  it,  pro- 
pitious heaven  almost  visiblj^  intervened,  by  break- 
ing: the  last  barrier  which  prevents  the  loyal  father 
of  waters,  from  flowing  free  and  unobstructed 
through  the  divided  rebellion;  and  by  sweeping- 
back,  from  the  bristling  hills  of  Gettysburg,  the 
army  of  the  alien  on  its  last  desperate  raid  into  the 
bosom  of  the  North.  Away  up  in  mid  air,  on  the 
cloud  capped  crests  of  the  south-eastern  Alleghanies, 
there  is  the  roar  and  lurid  flame  of  battle,  as  if  the 
pent  up  fires  of  the  cavernous  earth  were  bursting 


49 

from  their  thunder-riven  summits,  while  down,  down 
in  the  deep  valley,  it  seems  as  if  the  elements  of 
nature  were  battering  chasms  and  pathways  through 
their  granite  foundations.  The  gates  of  Georgia 
yield  to  the  flushed  battalions  of  the  Cumberland, 
and  from  the  Altamaha  to  the  Cape  Fear,  three 
great  states  of  the  Confederacy  soon  "  feel  the  vic- 
tor's tread  and  know  the  conquered  knee."  Hood  is 
hurled,  by  his  infatuated  Chieftain,  against  the  bat- 
tlements of  Nashville  only  to  be  dashed  back  broken 
and  destroyed.  The  vale  of  the  Shenandoah  is 
swept  by  the  besom,  and  scourged  by  the  wrath  of 
■Sheridan.  Over  the  forest  which  sweeps  from  the 
Eapidan  to  the  James,  there  hangs,  in  early  Spring 
time,  a  dark  and  portentous  cloud ;  the  Wilderness 
is  red  as  if  untimely  Autumn  had  pui|)led  its  foliage. 
We  dimly  hear,  far  in  its  resounding  depths,  that 
awe-inspiring  roll,  that  sharp  suggestive  rattle  which 
forewarns  and  terrifies  nations,  and  ever  and  anon  a 
woe-begone  messenger,  such  as 

"  Drew  Priam's  curtain  at  the  dead  of  niwht 
And  told  him  half  his  Troy  was  burned" — 

breaks  from  the  sequestered  thicket,  with  a  tantali- 
zing tale,  of  the  fierce,  sanguinary,  but  indecisive 
shock  and  recoil  of  embattled  hosts.  What  weeks  of 
heart-rending  suspense  !  But  finally,  from  the  Sat- 
urnalia of  death  and  butchery  long  rampant  in  its 
4 


50 

sombre  and  haunted  recesses,  he  of  the  iron  will  and 
inflexible  tenacity,  at  length  emerges  in  the  resplen- 
dent robes  of  Victory,  and  day  after  day  for  jDersist- 
ent  months,  immoved  by  clamor,  undismayed  by 
failure,  unwearied  by  resistance,  slowly  tightens  an 
irresistible  coil,  round  the  wailing  Capital  of  sin, 
until  faint  and  gasping,  it  falls  into  the  arms  of  a 
negro  brigade.  City  after  city,  harbor  after  harbor 
succumbs.  The  coast  is  hermetically  sealed  from 
Norfolk  to  Galveston,  and  the  magazines  and  arsenals 
of  England  and  France  no  longer  pour  their  strength- 
ening tides  into  the  decaying  veins  of  the  worn  out 
Confederacy.  Sheridan  rolls  up  the  Confederate 
right  like  a  scroll  and  hangs  on  its  flying  flank  with 
the  scent  of  a  hound  and  the  snap  of  a  terrier.  Lee 
surrenders  his  decimated  horde,  and  over  the  old 
endeared,  precious  inheritance  from  the  Rappahan- 
nock to  the  Sabine,  up  flies  the  banner,  down  droops 
the  rag. 

Abraham  Lincoln's  work  was  finished,  when  unher- 
alded and  almost  unattended,  leading  his  little  son 
by  the  hand,  he  walks  into  the  streets  of  humiliated 
Richmond.  If  upon  that  auspicious  morn,  the  crown- 
ing benediction  had  descended  upon  him,  he  might 
have  well  wished  to  die.  What  more  could  he  ask 
for  on  earth?     Assailed  by  the  strongest  conspiracy 


51 

that  ever  threatened  a  nation's  life,  after  a  four  years' 
struggle,  his  triumph  over  it  was  complete  and  over- 
whelming, conquering  liberty  for  a  class  and  national 
existence  for  a  people.  Was  not  this  honor  enough 
for  one  man  ?  He  had  survived  ridicule,  he  had  out- 
lived detraction  and  abuse,  he  had  secured  the  com- 
mendation of  the  world  for  purity  of  purpose,  con- 
stancy in  disaster,  clemency  in  triumph,  and  the 
praise  even  of  his  armed  foes,  for  gentleness  and 
mercy.  In  times  more  troubled,  he  had  administered 
Government  with  more  ability  than  Cavour,  and  War 
with  more  success  than  Napoleon  the  Third.  He 
had  paled  the  glory  of  Hastings  in  preserving  an 
empire,  and  had  earned  comparison  with  Hampden 
for  self-command  and  rectitude  of  intention,  while  as 
the  emancipator  of  a  race,  he  stood  alone  in  solitary 
glory,  without  a  rival  and  without  a  parallel.  If 
fame  had  approached  him  with  the  laurels  of  a  con- 
queror, if  power  had  offered  him  a  sceptre,  and 
ambition  a  crown,  he  would  have  scorned  them  all. 
He  asked  from  man,  he  asked  from  God  but  one 
culminating  boon,  peace,  peace  on  the  bloody  waters 
and  the  blighted  shore. 

Alas!  such  an  enviable  consummation  to  his  career 
was  denied.  There  are  mysterious  conferences  of 
suspicious  and  guilt-laden  men,  ominous  flittings  of  a 
bat-like   flock   from  Washington  to  Eichmond,  and 


52 

from  Richinontl  to  Canada,  midnight  interviews,  lurk- 
ing spies,  correspondence  in    cypher;  a  conspiracy 
aij;ainst  his  life  has  Ion":  been  maturimr,  in   minds 
capable  of  such  things,  and  finally  the  day  is  named, 
the  place  is  appointed,  and  the  parts  of  the  bloody 
drama  all  distributed.     On  the  evening  of  the  I4tli 
of  April,  1865,  at  Ford's  theatre  in  the  City  of  Wash- 
ington, the  trigger  of  a  pistol  is  pulled  by  a  sneaking 
murderer  who  had  crept  up  behind  him  all  unwarned, 
and  the  report  resounds  through  the  startled  assem- 
bly.    From  the  private  box  which  the  President  was 
known  to  occupy,  an  excited  wretch,  with  a  swart 
visage  torn  and  convulsed  by  every  passion,  leaps 
upon  the  stage  where  he  had  last  played  the  blood- 
thirsty Apostate,  and   braridishing  a  dagger  in  his 
outstretched  hand,  and  exclaiming  "  sic  semper  tyran- 
nis,"  vanished  into  night  and  darkness,  leaving  behind 
him   horror,   terror   and   Avoe.      The  nation   stands 
ao-hast !  the  crime  of  the  Dark  Ao-es  has  entered  our 
History — stealthy  assassination  has  broken  tlie  sacred 
succession  of  the  people's  anointed — the  life  of  the 
best  beloved  of  Presidents  is  oozing  from  a  murder- 
ous wound — the  soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  trans- 
ferred from  Earth  to  Heaven. 

Whether  the  Confederate  Government  is  legally 
guilty  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  murder,  is  a  question  yet  to 
be  determined,  but  of  one   thing  we  are  sure,  that 


53 

no  crime  is  too  bad,  too  bold,  too  infamous,  too  exe- 
crable, for  that  state  of  society  which  was  willing  to 
unchain  the  fiends  of  war,  to  incarnadine  sea  and 
land,  to  immolate  a  Republic  that  is  to  the  victims 
of  misgovernment  the  only  pledge  of  ransom,  and 
to  the  victimizer  the  only  warrant  of  retribution,  to 
bore  into  Pandemonium  itself  and  surge  this  conse- 
crated earth  with  its  sulphurous  seas  of  flame,  that 
it  might  continue  to  batten  forever  on  slavery,  and 
perpetuate  eternally  "such  abominations  as  are 
buried  under  the  waters  of  the  Dead  Sea."  Assas- 
sination belongs  to  the  same  ruffian  family  of  crime 
in  which  that  society  exulted  previous  to  the  war,  and 
to  the  same  degree  of  infernal  turpitude  with  those 
which  it  had  encouraged  and  applauded,  during  its 
prosecution.  Without  compunction  or  hesitation,  it 
could  coolly  plot  to  pile  hecatomb  upon  hecatomb  of 
victims,  infancy  and  age,  guilt  and  innocence,  in  one 
smouldering  heap,  by  the  midnight  conflagration  of 
our  crowded  metropolis.  It  could  stealthily  conduct 
the  infection  of  a  devouring  pestilence,  as  electricity 
by  the  wires,  into  the  healthy  atmosphere  of  the 
North,  that  all  who  breathed  it  might  die.  It  could 
deliberately  compose  the  fiendish  plan,  and  day  after 
day,  hour  after  hour,  composedly  weigh  and  measure 
out  to  helpless  prisoners,  the  precise  ration  which 
was  sure  to  produce  their  slow  starvation.     What  a 


54 

burlesque  to  see  such  a  society  shrink  back  affrighted 
and  horror  struclv,  at  sliooting  one  Abohtionist  in 
the  head  and  stabbinsi;  another  in  the  heart !  In  the 
name  of  Christianity  it  justifies  Human  Bondage,  in 
the  name  of  the  Constitution  it  justifies  its  over- 
throw, in  the  name  of  Chivahy  it  justifies  the 
Bloodhound  and  the  Barracoon,  why  not  in  the 
name  of  Patriotism  justify  Assassination,  and  ap- 
prove and  ratify  the  hired  murderer's  Ij'ing  epi- 
taph upon  himself  when  with  the  price  of  blood  in 
his  pocket  he  says,  "tell  my  mother  I  died  for  my 
country."  What  a  record  of  lawlessness  and  infamy 
has  slavery  written  for  itself  from  Mr.  Lincoln's  elec- 
tion to  his  death !  Appealing  to  the  Ballot,  it 
abjures  the  verdict  of  the  peojDle,  appealing  to  Pub- 
lic Opinion,  it  defies  the  decree  of  the  civilized  world, 
appealing  to  Arms,  it  tramples  on  the  Code  of  War 
and  summons  Starvation,  the  Torch,  and  the  Plague, 
to  aid  the  impotency  of  its  sword.  Too  wicked  to 
live  in  peace,  too  weak  to  succeed  in  war,  too  enraged 
to  accept  defeat,  too  corrupt  to  die  with  honor,  too 
putrid  to  rise  again,  it  gathers  up  its  expiring  strength 
to  strike  an  assassin's  blow  that  it  miditdie  as  it  had 
lived,  violating  every  law,  human  and  divine,  and 
accursed  by  God  and  man. 

"Useless,  useless,"  said  the    dying   Thug,   as   his 
shrieking  ghost  fled  from  the  angry   earth  to  the 


55 

vengeful  skies.  ^Yes,  ye.s,  crime  always  fails  in  its 
purpose,  assassination  is  everlastingly  a  blunder. 
Ca3sar  is  assassinated,  and  imperial  sway  emerges  in 
full  armed  despotism  from  his  tomb — Henry  the 
Fourth  is  assassinated,  but  the  edict  of  Nantes  sur- 
vives for  nearly  a  century  the  dagger  of  Ravaillac, 
and  religious  toleration  is  invigorated  by  its  blow — 
William  the  Silent  is  assassinated,  but  the  repubhc  of 
the  Netherlands  breaks  the  double  fetters  of  super- 
stition and  tyranny,  and  expands  into  a  great  and 
flourishing  commonwealth — Buckingham  is  assassin- 
ated, but  Protestant  Rochelle  is  soon  delivered  up  to 
the  vengeance  of  Richeheu— Capo  D'Istria  is  assas- 
sinated, but  the  European  dynasties  control  the 
policy  and  elect  the  kings  of  Greece — Lincoln  is 
assassinated,  but  the  branded- confederacy  cowers 
beneath  the  maledictions  of  the  civilized  world,  and 
onward,  onward,  roll  the  mighty  wheels  of  victory 
and  vengeance.  "Useless,"  and  didst  thou  dream, 
impious  malefactor,  that  it  was  in  the  power  of  thy 
puny  arm  to  reach  the  great  life  of  our  virtuous 
deli\t:rer  ?  He  lives !  he  lives  !  he  lives  to-day,  in 
his  imperishable  example,  in  his  recorded  words  of 
wisdom,  in  his  great  maxims  of  liberty  and  enfran- 
chisement. The  good  never  die  ;  to  them  belongs  a 
double  immortality,  they  perish  not  upoh  the  earth, 
and  they  exist  forever  in  heaven.     The  good  of  the 


56 

present  live  in  the  future,  as  the  good  of  the  past  are 
here  with  us  and  in  us  to-day.  The  great  primeval 
law-giver,  entombed  for  forty  centuries  in  that  un- 
known grave,  in  an  obscure  vale  of  Moab,  to-day 
legislates  in  your  halls  of  State,  and  preaches  on 
your  Sabbath  in  all  your  synagogues.  Salem's  royal 
singer  indites  our  liturgies  and  leads  our  worship. 
Socrates  questions  Atheists  in  these  streets.  Phidias 
sculptures  the  friezes  of  Christian  temples — the 
desecrated  tongue  of  mangled  Tully  arraigns  our 
Catalines — against  the  Philip  of  to-day  the  dead 
Demosthenes  thunders — the  dead  Leonidas  guards 
the  gates  of  every  empire  which  wrestles  for  its 
sovereignty — the  dead  Justinian  issues  ia  your  courts 
the  living  mandates  of  the  law — the  dead  Martin 
Luther  issues  from  ^^our  press  the  living  oracles  of 
God — the  dead  Napoleon  still  sways  Prance  from 
that  silent  throne  in  the  Invalides — the  dead  George 
Washington  held  together  through  wrangling  decades 
this  brotherhood  of  States,  and  the  dead  Abraham 
Lincoln  will  peal  the  clarion  of  beleaguered  nations 
and  marshal  and  beckon  on  the  wavering  battle  line 
of  liberty,  till  the  last  generation  of  man — 

"  Shall  creation's  death  behold 
As  Adam  saw  her  prime." 

His  fame  will  grow  brighter  and  grander,  as  it 
descends  the  ages,  and  posterity  will  regard  him  as 


57 

the  incarnation  of  democracy,  in  its  pure  childhood, 
as  the  embodiment  of  those  ideas  of  universal  eman- 
cipation,  which  were  the  glory  of  its  youthful  epoch. 
In  remote  futurity,  as  far  removed  from  us  as  we  are 
from  the  Chaldeans,  when  the  massive  walls  of  our 
Capitol  shall  no  more  exist  than  the  palace  of  Neb- 
uchadnezzar, and  all  that  is  mortal  in  our  civiliza- 
tion and  polity  shall  live  only  in  memory,  and  when 
the  ingenuous  child,  gazing  adown  the  dark  infinity 
of  time,  will  be  obliged  to  ask  "where  is  the  nine- 
teenth century  ?"  "  There,  there,"  the  sage  will  reply, 
"  where  you  see  that  full  orbed  and  splendid  Hesperus 
of  the  West."  When  the  race  shall  have  finally 
climbed  to  the  lofty  table  land  of  universal  brother- 
hood, to  which  it  is  inevitably  destined  by  the  para- 
mount law  of  its  own  development,  and  shall  turn 
backward  its  wistful  eyes  for  those  who  have  led  its 
weary  pilgrimage,  through  passes  the  most  perilous, 
and  over  wastes  the  most  disheartening,  they  will 
instinctively  seek  the  uncourtly  figure  of  that  forest 
born  liberator,  who,  by  one  glorious  edict  restored  to 
humanity  all  the  divine  equalities  enfeoffed  upon  it, 
when  of  one  blood  all  the  children  of  men  were 
made,  and  thus  incorporated  into  harmonious  frater- 
nity all  the  estranged  and  repellant  complexions  of 
mankind.     With  reverent  and  grateful  hearts  they 

will  pour  their  choicest  frankincense  at  the  feet, 
5 


68 

crown  with  unfading  amaranth  the  brow,  and  by 
eulogy,  statue,  column  and  obelisk,  and  every  aid  to 
enduring  remembrance,  transmit  to  new  and  ever 
rising  futurities,  the  irradiated  name  of  the  first 
President  of  the  regenerated  Republic,  that  Martyr 
to  Liberty  and  Law,  whom,  on  this  shore  and  border 
of  Time's  immensity  we  deplore  to-day,  Abraham 
Lincoln  of  Illinois. 


I 


^rr-^ySiit, 


<3 


1 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS-URBANA 

973.7L6302D39E  C001 

EULOGY  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  HARTFORD 


3  01 


31809251 


